Mobile computing devices such as smartphones, tablets, and in-vehicle infotainment devices typically include applications for navigation, driving directions, or pathfinding. Those applications may use the global positioning system (GPS) or other techniques to determine the device location. Driving directions and other routes may be determined by the mobile device or by a server device in communication with the mobile device. Directions are typically generated for the route having the shortest distance or travel time between two points.
Such mobile devices often offer other applications in addition to navigation applications. For example, many mobile devices provide entertainment applications including streaming audio or video as well as productivity applications including remote access to documents and other computer files. As a result, users typically desire reliable and fast network data connections for their mobile devices. Typical mobile devices display current network conditions to the user in the form of a simple “bar” graph indicating signal strength.
Geographical information systems (GIS) may store many types of data indexed and/or searchable by geographical location. For example, a GIS may store crime data for various municipalities, localities, and/or other geographical locations. A typical GIS includes a GIS server maintained by a municipality or other entity that may be accessed by numerous client devices such as mobile computing devices. Typically, GIS data is available for manual searching and/or browsing, for example through a web interface.